Ice Moon 2 The Io Encounter Read online

  “Dear guests, we have arrived,” a voice said over the loudspeaker. One could not tell whether it was a computer-generated recording or the voice of a real human being. Well, the automatic system drove the car, Major Shixin Tang thought, though he could not be entirely sure of that either, since the driver’s seat was surrounded by an opaque box. He looked at the woman accompanying him. She called herself Lining Li, but the name was certainly as fake as his own. At least he had been allowed to choose his own, and he liked this one because it meant “lion heart.” He wondered whether his colleague had chosen her name due to its meaning—strength, force, peace? He would never find out, anyway, since they were not allowed to discuss private matters during a mission, in order to prevent their adversaries from using this information against them.

  Their adversaries. Shixin smiled. They were about to enter the headquarters of one of their adversaries, the center of one of their most important intelligence services, the National Security Agency. Twenty years ago, this country and his own had been involved in a huge conflict regarding North Korea, and now they were suddenly best of friends. How quickly a common threat could form the basis for a temporary relationship.

  “Please walk toward the door,” a voice said. Green lights on the floor showed him where to stand. Then he heard a slight humming. Right now, a terahertz scanner was probably searching him for hidden objects, and a computer was comparing the structure of his iris with the data his superiors had previously sent to the NSA.

  “Welcome, Major Tang,” the voice finally said, while a hidden door opened. Shixin looked around, but he could not see his colleague. He waited, until the voice spoke again.

  “Please follow the corridor,” it said, and the major obeyed. He reached a small room where his colleague was already waiting for him. She gave him a mocking smile.

  “Well, did you have problems with Immigrations?” asked Lining sarcastically.

  He expected her to be troublesome. After all, she had reached the same rank as his own, despite being fifteen years younger than he was. The only way one moved up the ranks so quickly was by cleverly sidelining people who had been working longer in the same field. Maybe his own superiors were using her to test him. If he could not handle her, even though she was officially his subordinate, they would certainly put him out to pasture—at the age of 52!

  I will not let that happen, Shixin thought. He looked around. The room was an area of about three square meters, four at the most. The walls appeared to be perfectly smooth and he could not detect any doors, although he and his colleague had to have entered through different doors. Along one side were two narrow chairs, but neither he nor Lining bothered to sit down. They were probably being watched. Undoubtedly, the Americans wanted to know what kind of agents China had sent here.

  What they had been told must be true—these people were really into clever mind games. Like typical Westerners, they used confusion and enticement instead of simply and directly addressing their clients in a way that permitted no opposition. Shixin shook his head. He could think freely, which was an advantage only agents sent abroad, such as Lining and himself, had.

  At one point in the past, a highly-skilled surgeon had implanted electromagnetic shielding below their scalps. Otherwise, the danger of adversaries reading their brainwaves would be too great. Of course this attribute also protected him at home, as long as he did not act suspiciously and give them a reason to have a doctor perform the painful procedure to remove the metal net, which had long ago grown into his skull.

  Without any warning a narrow door opened. Lining gestured for him to go first, even though this was his right anyway, due to his age and seniority. This is a provocation, Shixin realized. He hoped the Americans would not notice such subtleties, as they could exploit this detail. However, they were here as friends, so maybe his worries were unfounded.

  The hallway in front of them was softly lit at top and bottom. It turned at a slight angle, and then they stood in front of a wall disguised as a mirror. His iris was probably being scanned again, since it took a few seconds before the wall quickly slid to one side.

  “Good morning, Major Tang,” said the tall black man standing beyond it and smiling broadly. His English does not sound so pure. Must be some Southern accent, Shixin thought.

  “I am Michael Butterfield, but you can call me Mike.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Shixin said. “Well, let’s all stick to first names then.”

  Mike smiled. He noticed the little linguistic test his counterpart had given him. He replied, “Thanks, Shixin,” pronouncing the x correctly as ‘kh.’Next he greeted Shixin’s colleague, Lining.

  Then the American pointed at another door that seemed to open by itself, revealing the inside of a large conference room. Shixin followed the invitation. When they entered, a Marine Corps general and a woman in a business suit rose to greet them. The woman introduced herself as an analyst, giving no name, while the officer’s name was clearly visible on his uniform. Shixin took some pictures with the camera integrated into his retina, just in case. He really wanted to know who this woman was. She presumably worked for the NSA, and she was also rather good-looking, for an American.

  Mike seemed to be the one in command, or at least to be directing things, as he now asked everyone to sit down at the large table. He sat down, too, while the nameless analyst remained standing. The opposite wall, which looked like gray concrete, turned into a giant screen. Not bad, Shixin thought, without letting on. The projection technology could not even be seen, which meant the optically-active layer must be directly on the wall. It was probably a mosaic of smaller quantum dot displays, because that was the only way—to his knowledge—to achieve this level of brightness.

  The screen showed Enceladus, a moon of Saturn. The viewer approached its surface in a rapid dive, while the analyst started with her report.

  “You know what this is all about, so I won’t bother you with minor details,” said the woman. Then she snapped her fingers and the video froze.

  “The crew of ILSE encountered an alien life form in the Enceladus Ocean. It appears to be peaceful. We know there was successful communication with it. The creature, which we have given the code name Hydra, consists of large, and I mean truly large, numbers of cells that look primitive at first sight, but can fulfill any necessary function.”

  The display now showed the cells through a microscope. Shixin was already familiar with the photos taken by the German crew member of ILSE. These cells were obviously not all identical. Though he was no biologist, he recognized that he was, however, seeing repetitive structures. A female expert belonging to his intelligence service had compared them to snowflakes, which individually look quite different but the structures of which followed specific rules.

  “Basically, there are fewer than twenty different types of cells. However, the biologists are not completely sure, since the cells seem to be able to change from one type into another. Unfortunately, we have not been able to observe this process in its original habitat. Also, there is no sample on board ILSE that we could examine further in this respect.”

  “Which is probably for the best,” Shixin said, “as we do not want any alien life on our planet.”

  The analyst nodded. “We totally agree with you. You know what biologists can be like.”

  Shixin wondered if the Americans were hiding something from him. His own country’s experts considered it unlikely, because the U.S. commander of the spaceship never had any contact with the life form. The Russians, on the other hand—well, you certainly couldn’t put it past them. Shixin had felt respect for their man—Marchenko was his name—when he heard of his incredible action on Enceladus, going all alone in a submarine to the origin of this life form, without any chance of survival. What good did it do him? Posthumous fame as a hero of Russia, maybe, but what use was that? On the other hand, it was good that his adventure did not end in a complete success...

  “... at least 100 million cells per square centimeter.
” Lining nudged Shixin with her elbow. Damn it! he thought, I must not let myself get distracted. Without displaying any emotion he brought his focus back to the analyst, who now seemed to be speculating about the size of the entity. He did not look at his younger colleague.

  “Conservative estimates assume about 10 to the power of 23 cells, but there might be 10 to the power of 25. In a way it does not matter. The average human being, as you probably know, consists of 10 to the power of 14 cells. Hydra therefore has the same number of cells as at least 100 million humans, or maybe even ten billion. Now let’s imagine 100 million humans who could unite their brainpower. What would this lead to? On the one hand the idea is breathtaking, but on the other hand, it is frightening. We also do not know what percentage of Hydra’s cells can switch to mental functions, if necessary. We might be dealing with a biological supercomputer far surpassing anything mankind has ever constructed.”

  The numbers were certainly impressive, but the Chinese experts had already arrived at the same conclusions. Shixin had hoped the Americans would have more to offer, particularly because of the up-front work his own people had to provide.

  The analyst continued, “This would be dangerous enough if Hydra was just newborn. But this creature is at least several hundred million years old—if not billions. What could humanity achieve if it had all that time to employ such enormous brainpower? And then add the sense of perception. We have credible reports indicating Hydra can perceive both X-rays and gamma rays, and can also feel magnetic fields. So much input, for which we have to build expensive devices, and it has so much processing capacity. This leads to the question for which we are all here. What about Hydra’s output?”

  Shixin had closely followed the discussions in his own country. The encounter with the alien being had generated a lot of hope, particularly among scientists at universities who were looking forward to solving mankind’s big questions. The Party leadership—or to be more exact, the conservative wing of the Party—tried to suppress these expectations. The last ‘Great Leap Forward’ of his country took place not that very long ago. Back then, millions of people had died, and since that time, continuous progress had been the country’s goal. The system was still working today, in spite of skeptical predictions by the West. Would it be wise to deviate from a proven path?

  “To be honest,” the nameless analyst continued, “I cannot answer the question concerning its output right now. One thing seems obvious, however—its potential is enormous. It is so immense, mankind currently cannot even begin to compete. Naturally, individual nations might try to turn any new insights into a weapon against their neighbors. It has taken so long to achieve a barely-stable world balance. We cannot allow anything, in any way, to endanger that balance.”

  Shixin nodded. His government had reached the same conclusion as the Americans, and that was the reason he was here.

  The analyst continued, “It might be a different situation if we had Hydra under control. Unfortunately, that is not possible.”

  Yes, your military is very interested in new technologies, Shixin thought.

  “The Europeans, the Japanese, the Russians, the Indians—they all will want to have a hand in the game,” the analyst said. “Now, we have to pay the price for not putting the expedition under military command to begin with. We should never have let civilians handle it. That being said, none of our scientists dared to predict such a stunning result.”

  We did not make the same mistake, Shixin thought, but that will not help us now. Thirty years from now we would have been able to manage the expedition on our own. He was feeling excited just thinking about the People’s Republic of China owning this enormous treasure trove of knowledge. Then their leading scientists could slowly and methodically investigate it! A hundred years from now, by the very latest, we would have finally broken the dominance of the West.

  “It is not too late to intervene… yet,” the presumed NSA analyst now said, her voice getting louder.

  If we cannot have it by ourselves, no one should get it. That’s my motto, Shixin thought. And for once, the conservative forces sending him here were in agreement.

  “That was her suggestion. She’ll go far,” Mike whispered to him.

  “We talked to some of our researchers engaged in the field of biological warfare. Of course, in a purely defensive way, just as a precaution.” The woman scrutinized the small Chinese delegation, and Shixin nodded condescendingly. The entire world knew the Americans were secretly researching bio-weapons, even though that was strictly prohibited by international treaties. The Russians were no different in that respect, and of course the People’s Republic could not afford to fall behind either of them.

  “Scientists modeled the cell structures based on our current data. They cannot recreate them, let alone make them come alive. But they are certain they could create a virus to completely destroy Hydra.”

  Shixin was not surprised, but still the idea of eliminating the alien being gave him pause. It would not be the first species mankind had killed off, but it would certainly be the first extraterrestrial one. Ah, well. It had to happen sometime, he thought philosophically. “What do you mean by ‘could?’”

  “Well, Major Tang, the virus is actually already finished—at least inside a computer. And it is working.”

  “Inside a computer,” he repeated. The analyst smiled. He even thought he could detect some pity in her smile. Shixin knew all about this type. He had dealt with such women at the beginning of his career, shortly before the Second Korean War. At first they had been tough, but the tiniest hint of the pain awaiting made each betray her entire family. Americans were spoiled and soft.

  “Of course, in a computer,” the analyst said, “but we have run very good simulations. Biologists give us a 95 percent chance of implementing it. Hydra makes it very easy for us. It has not experienced any competition for billions of years. You all know how bad the absence of competition can be.”

  Shixin almost laughed out loud. If the woman only knew... She might be a brilliant NSA analyst, but she did not seem to know anything at all about China. There had always been competition in his country. Even inside the Party there were always at least two factions struggling for dominance.

  “This being appears to have no defenses,” the analyst continued, “no immune system such as every species on Earth has. The creature would be completely helpless against any attacker.”

  “It ‘appears?’” Shixin queried. The Chinese experts had said the same thing, but he did not want the NSA woman to get away so easily.

  “We can only be sure once we’ve tried it.”

  “And how is this supposed to work?” asked Shixin.

  “Thanks, Alice,” Mike Butterfield interrupted. “That was an impressive presentation. Now it’s my turn.” He stood up and restarted the screen on the wall. For the past few minutes it had only been showing the agency logo. A diagram of the ILSE spaceship now appeared.

  “We are going to synthesize the virus on board ILSE, fly back to Enceladus, and insert it into the ocean. The rest will happen automatically. Of course, it means sacrificing the entire crew. We cannot risk this ever coming to light.”

  “You keep saying ‘we,’” Shixin said.

  “We—you and I—will do this together. Did you bring the collateral we asked for?” asked Mike.

  “Yes.” Shixin nodded. “And who will be responsible on your side? In China, as I can guarantee, the leadership of Party and country stand behind the project. Of course only a small circle has been informed.”

  “I want to be completely open with you,” Mike replied. “The Pentagon approved Project AntiHydra. That has to be enough. There is disagreement on whether the President should be informed.”

  “That part is your problem,” Shixin said. “My colleague and I are looking forward to leading this joint project to a successful conclusion.”

  February 19, 2047, ILSE

  A humming sound interrupted Hayato’s sleep. That damned alarm clock,
he thought, and opened his eyes. It was dark in the cabin. He reached to the right and was shocked to find the other side of the bed empty. Then he remembered. Amy was spending the night in her own cabin to catch up on some sleep. He held his wrist unit in front of his face and saw it read 6 o’clock. His shift would soon start. Not even an hour ago he had fed Sol the milk Amy had expressed. He had constructed the pump himself, so the commander and mother of his son would be able to sleep more than three or four hours at a time. The method worked well, but the drawback was now there were nights when it was his turn to feed Sol.

  Hayato did some calculations. Tonight, he had probably gotten a total of four hours of sleep. After the first feeding for ‘the little devil’ at one o’clock he had been unable to fall asleep for a while and instead he’d started thinking. Was it the right thing to have smuggled Marchenko’s consciousness on board? Was this really still the reliable colleague who had once embarked on this journey with them, and had become their friend? Marchenko’s behavior—for lack of a better word—since the beginning of the return trip had not given rise to any doubts, but could they really be sure they weren’t exposing Earth to a grave danger?

  Then he considered Jiaying’s strange behavior. Over the last few days she had withdrawn from the rest of the crew and had almost completely isolated herself. Was it a side effect of breaking off with Martin, or conversely, was this separation from her boyfriend precipitated by something else? Hayato remembered well the weeks after their launch from Earth. It had taken the Chinese woman some time to become a real member of the team, which most likely had more to do with her being trained separately by her national space agency during the time the others were getting to know each other in joint training. But after the German astronaut saved her life, she had changed almost completely. Something must have happened to set her back this much. Amy had tried to talk to her about it, but without success. Hayato decided to attempt it as well. Maybe being a man he could establish a different connection to Jiaying.